WASHINGTON — Kamala Harris said Wednesday that recently reported comments Donald Trump made to his longest-serving chief of staff offer a window into who the former president "really is" and the kind of commander in chief he would be.
Then-President Donald Trump talks with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after he was privately sworn in July 31, 2017, in the Oval Office in Washington.
In interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic published Tuesday, John Kelly warned that the Republican nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office he suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler "did some good things."
Harris repeated her increasingly dire warnings about Trump's mental fitness and his intentions for the presidency.
"This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who have worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the situation room," Harris told reporters in Washington.
The comments from Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, build on past warnings from former top Trump officials.
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Kelly has long been critical of Trump and previously accused him of calling veterans killed in combat "suckers" and "losers." His new warnings emerged as Trump seeks a second term vowing to dramatically expand his use of the military at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he considers "enemies from within."
"He commented more than once that, 'You know, Hitler did some good things, too,'" Kelly recalled to the Times. Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying "nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good," but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.
In his interview with the Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing "German generals," Kelly would ask if he meant "Bismarck's generals," referring to Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor who oversaw the unification of Germany. "Surely you can't mean Hitler's generals," Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, "Yeah, yeah, Hitler's generals."
Trump said on his Truth Social media platform that Kelly “made up a story,” then heaped insults on his former chief of staff, including that Kelly's “toughness morphed into weakness.”
Trump’s campaign also denied the accounts. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Kelly “beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated" and, after Harris' statement, accused the Democratic candidate of sharing "outright lies and falsehoods.”
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks Wednesday at the vice president's residence in Washington.
Harris said Wednesday that Trump admired Hitler's generals because he "does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution, he wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him personally."
Polls show the race is tight in swing states, and both Trump and Harris are crisscrossing the country making their final pitches to the sliver of undecided voters. Harris' campaign has spent considerable time reaching out to independent voters, using the support of longtime Republicans such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and comments like Kelly's to urge past Trump voters to reject his candidacy in November.
Harris' campaign held a call with reporters Tuesday to elevate the voices of retired military officials who highlighted how many of the officials who worked with Trump now oppose his campaign.
"People that know him best are most opposed to him, his presidency," said retired Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson.
Anderson said he wished Kelly would fully back Harris over Trump, something he has yet to do. But retired Army reserve Col. Kevin Carroll, a former senior counselor to Kelly, said Wednesday that the former top Trump official would "rather chew broken glass than vote for Donald Trump."
Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly testifies June 6, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Before serving as Trump's chief of staff, Kelly worked as the former president's secretary of homeland security, where he oversaw Trump's attempts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Kelly was also at the forefront of the Trump administration's crackdown in immigration policy that led to the separation of thousands of immigrant parents and their children along the southern border. Those actions made him a villain to many on the left, including Harris.
When Kelly joined the board of a company operating the nation's largest detention center for unaccompanied migrant children, Harris wrote during her 2019 run for president that he "was the architect of the Trump Administration's cruel child separation policy. Now he will profit off the separation of families. It's unethical. We are better than this."
When she was in Miami for a primary debate in June 2019, Harris was also one of a dozen Democratic presidential candidates who journeyed south of Miami to the detention center. There, they protested against the Trump administration's harsh treatment of young migrants, including calling out Kelly for serving on the board of the company behind the site in Homestead, Florida, after he left the Trump administration.
Then-President Donald Trump listens to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, Oct. 10, 2018, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.
In his interview with the Times, Kelly also said Trump met the definition of a fascist. After reading the definition aloud, including that fascism was "a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader," Kelly concluded Trump "certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure."
Kelly added that Trump often fumed at any attempt to constrain his power, and "he would love to be" a dictator.
"He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government," Kelly told the Times. Adding later, "I think he'd love to be just like he was in business — he could tell people to do things and they would do it, and not really bother too much about whether what the legalities were and whatnot."
Retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as Trump's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bob Woodward in his recent book "War" that Trump was "fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to this country." Retired Gen. Jim Mattis, who worked as secretary of defense under Trump, reportedly later told Woodward that he agreed with Milley's assessment.
Election 2024: Voting in America
To help make sense of the way America picks a president, this special series is examining and explaining the ins and outs of U.S. elections.
In the 2024 general election, the AP will declare winners in nearly 2,000 uncontested races, compared with about 4,500 contested races.
Before there was a FiveThirtyEight model, or a New York Times election night needle, or 13 keys revealing “how presidential elections really work,” there was an economist named Louis Bean.
As thousands of counties and towns report vote totals, it can be hard to figure out when the results reported so far will reflect the outcome.
It is the concept of random selection that allows a relatively small group of survey participants to represent the country as a whole.
Polls are useful tools, but it's important not to overstate their accuracy. After all, a polling organization can't talk to every single person in the country.
Elections are human exercises that, despite all the laws and rules governing how they should run, can sometimes appear to be messy.
Officials seek to demystify a process that in recent years faced intense scrutiny, misinformation and false claims of widespread fraud.
There have been 36 recounts in statewide general elections since America's most famous one in 2000.
A few bellwether counties in the key battleground states are likely to decide the outcome — as they did the past two presidential elections.
The Electoral College is the unique American system of electing presidents. It is different from the popular vote, and it has an outsize impact on how candidates win campaigns.Â
An uncommon system of voting could be central to which party controls the U.S. House this fall — or even the presidency.
"This decentralized nature of the elections is itself a deterrent," said Republican Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state and the advisory board chair of the Secure Elections Project.
The few counties that have attempted the massive task to count ballots by hand have found the process more time-consuming, expensive and inaccurate than expected.
Voting machines have been at the center of a web of conspiracy theories, with false claims that they were manipulated to steal the presidency from Donald Trump.
So you want to cast a ballot on Election Day? Or maybe vote by mail? It helps to know the rules.
The Associated Press has created a series of videos explaining how elections work in the United States.
Roughly 50 years ago, about 95% of voters cast their ballots in person on Election Day. That number has fallen gradually as states have provided Americans with more options.
It can be tough to make sense of everything before Election Day, so here's a guidebook, of sorts, to American democracy as it nears its 250th birthday.
